Suzhou, a metropolis rich in humanity and filled with the scent of books, has a grand New Year’s Eve speech at the end of every year. One ticket is hard to find. “Meet in 2019-Metamorphosis” is the theme of the fourth year’s New Year’s Eve speech. The event was still located in the Suzhou City Radio and Television Building, with 1,500 people and a full house!

Ten speakers, including working gold-collar workers and entrepreneurial elites from all walks of life, shared their workplace experience and growth, with tears and struggles, pain and gain, and more love and humour.

Among them, there was a high school student speaker who was as gentle as jade, calm and generous. She is Xu Yunfei, a Suzhou camper of the 2018 “Retracing the Path of Xuesen” Northwest Science and Technology Environmental Protection Summer Camp jointly organised by Qian Xuesen Library and Green Light-Year. The theme she shared was “Rockets and Ruins”.

When she joined the camp, she had just graduated from junior high school. She has been admitted to the International Department of Suzhou High School, but she has always been a “weird” girl in the eyes of others. Before she went on stage, the host introduced her like this: she never chases stars, doesn’t play trendy games, doesn’t wear so-called designer labels, and loves to quietly think about topics that kids her age might not pay attention to. ……

Her performance in the camp was even more obscure and quiet, but the newsletter she wrote with the group was published in a very timely manner, and the content was very substantial. The most surprising thing is that on the last day of the campfire before the end of the camp, because of the poor equipment on the site could not play her music, she did not mind to give everyone a live “clear dance” a full commitment to the ballet, but also with the members of the Suzhou team to present a number of songs.

 

Li Lanjing from East China Normal University, the spinach tutor in charge of Xiao Xu and other campers in the “Retracing the Road to Xuesen” summer camp, said this about her:

Xu Yunfei, an introverted girl, doesn’t talk much compared to other lively children, and has a quiet and elegant manner. During the camp, she not only acted as a big sister, helping the campers to learn and progress together, but also performed a ballet in the campfire party, which was very eye-catching and made everyone applaud. It is believed that her education and continuous self-exploration have given her an extraordinary knowledge base and quick thinking ability, which has gradually grown into her present form. Without getting to know her better, you have no idea how much energy she has underneath her body, so I hope she will continue to keep her original intention in mind and become more and more self-confident and relaxed.

This girl who enjoys loneliness, because of the two summer camps, but triggered her deep thinking about life. From the development of the high-tech business that Qian was engaged in, to the children begging along the streets after years of reconstruction after the Yushu disaster, she asked the audience on the spot:

“What should I do?”

“What should our education do?”

“How should our country’s development of high technology and development of people’s livelihood be balanced?”

Ms. Guangnian has repeatedly confirmed with her parents that she didn’t ask her teachers or parents for help or to do it for her? Did she really write this speech herself? Her parents said, “We worry very little about this child’s studies, what she thinks about has always been heavier, we really didn’t get involved, it’s all her own opinion – except for her presentation skills, she received a month of intense speech training provided by the organisers. Like the other speakers, she had to train her gestures and stance, as well as the form of interaction with the audience, over and over again according to the points of the speech. The speech, which had been revised countless times, echoed the previous speaker, Li Bo, who introduced “public education” when she entered the stage that day.

This girl’s future goals in life exclude the lucrative business field and the promising future of EE, and she said she hopes to study a field that has a meaningful impact on society.

Next, follow Ms. Guangnian to review her speech!

She started by doubting her life. At one point, she thought that the world she lived in was like a film played just for her, with all the plots and characters pre-arranged.

Wait, are you talking about the Hollywood-produced Truman Show? Unlike Truman, who has been the object of the world’s deception from the time he was born to the time he started his family, Xiao Xu has been the one who has been thinking positively about her life which still has a lot of uncertainties.

Yun Fei introduced the audience to the precious historical sites visited in the Dongfeng Space City No. 2 base (such as the underground command room where the Dongfanghong satellite was launched).

There was also the launch tower of China’s first artificial satellite and the launch tower of China’s first intercontinental missile.

She leads the audience through time and space to experience the arduous entrepreneurial journey of Chinese astronauts. And in this, Qian Xuesen’s decisive return to China against all odds and risks inspired countless Chinese hot-blooded intellectual youths to devote themselves to the Gobi.

However, her subsequent trip to Yushu made her sit up and take notice.

The children begging along the streets, the cheap and poor-quality equipment in the local supermarkets, and the rubbish at the entrance of the village brought her too much confusion and thoughts.

She began to think about what kind of “affluence” we should have in our vision of becoming well-off.

The crux of her question is, how to balance the need for a country to invest a lot of human and material resources in developing high technology in order to make China a leading country in the world, and at the same time, the need to invest a lot of human and financial resources in poverty alleviation and livelihood issues?

She puts forward the view that the two are not incompatible, but can complement each other.

In fact, isn’t the process of metamorphosis that Yunfei mentions at the end very similar to the step that Truman fumbled his way up to finally get out of the STUDIO?

Finally, let’s all congratulate Yunfei Xu for bringing a wonderful speech full of thoughts and energy on the New Year’s Eve 2018!